A pawn shop on the Sekkadu Kutt Road in Melapadi village near Katpadi in Vellore was broken into and 90 sovereigns of gold jewellery, 30 kilograms of silver jewellery worth around ₹35 lakh have been reportedly stolen in the early hours on Tuesday. Police said that P. Anil Kumar, 24, who runs the pawn shop, had closed it on Monday night. The incident came to light on Tuesday morning when employees of an adjacent juice shop, saw a hole in the wall. When they opened the juice shop, they saw another hole on the wall of the pawn shop. Immediately, they alerted Mr. Anil Kumar and Tiruvalam police, who rushed to the spot. “Two special teams have been formed to nab the suspects and recover the lost valuables. Surveillance cameras along the route are being studied,” said K. Palani, Deputy SP (Katpadi range).
Initial inquiries revealed that the suspects might have used drilling machines, crowbars and hammers to make holes in the walls and open the locker inside the pawn shop. Police also noticed that CCTV cameras including its hard disc inside the shop are missing. They suspect that the burglars might have taken the cameras along with them. Interestingly, the stretch (Sekkadu Kutt Road) and shops do not have CCTV cameras to monitor movement of people and vehicles. As a result, police are analysing CCTV footage along the route that connects Katpadi with Chittoor district in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Finger prints from the crime scene were also taken. Sniffer dogs were also roped in to get any clues on the theft.
